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How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

This is the first time I've seen a measure of hitter volatility and, to my surprise, Jay Bruce rates almost completely "average".

I know this is a finding that people on RZ would disagree with. I commented on the article accordingly. Thoughts?

Games are won on run differential -- scoring more than your opponent. Runs are runs, scored or prevented they all count the same. Worry about scoring more and allowing fewer, not which positions contribute to which side of the equation or how "consistent" you are at your current level of performance.

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

"Joey Votto logged a little less than 500 plate appearances, but posted a .409 VOL. That’s incredible when you think about the fact that he had a .448 wOBA for the season. Basically, he was just as consistent as Denard Span, but with a wOBA that was 35% higher than Span’s."

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

Votto, by the way, is among the best vs tough pitching.

"Baseball is a very, very complex business. It's more of a people business than most businesses." - Bob Castellini

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

Votto, by the way, is among the best vs tough pitching.

What time frame did they use for that? 2012, more or complete career to date?

"You can't let praise or criticism get to you. It's a weakness to get caught up in either one."

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

Josh Hamilton’s extreme highs and extreme lows in 2012 may have something to do with his hyper-aggressiveness on the first pitch of each at-bat. From the beginning of the season through May, Hamilton hit .368 with 21 home runs. In June and July, he hit .202 with just eight home runs.
The Nationals have three players—Ian Desmond, Danny Espinosa, and Bryce Harper—in the top-11. Patience at the plate is clearly not a priority for them.

Surprisingly, despite his low first-pitch swing percentage, J.J. Hardy only had a .282 on-base percentage in 2012. Every other player on this list had an on-base percentage at least 50 points higher (Teixeira second lowest at .332), each one of them significantly above MLB’s overall on-base percentage of .319.

So Volatility = STD(daily_wOBA)/Yearly_wOBA^.52
For an excellent hitter, wOBA = .400 which means the denominator is .62
For an awful hitter, wOBA = .290 which means the denominator is .52
Thus the volatility formula rewards the better players with a lower volatility score and punishes they worse players with a higher one, even if they had the identical Standard Deviation. Specifically, the "awful" hitter has about a 19% penalty in his VOL score. ("awful" multiplier: 1/.52 = 1.92, "excellent" muliplier: 1/.62 =1.61 )

Overall, this is an interesting effort, but I would expect the better wOBA people to be more volatile. If Votto has a .400 OBP, it's a lot easier to have a day that's worse than his average than it is for someone like Stubbs to maintain his average (which is closer to the distribution peaks of .000 and .250 shown in the graph) The different multipliers hide that fact.

I can't think of a better method. I don't mean to come across as negative, but I question whether this has true value.

Thank you Walt and Bob for going for it in 2010-2014!

Nov. 13, 2007: One of the greatest days in Reds history: John Allen gets the boot!

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

Originally Posted by lollipopcurve

One very interesting stat re: Bruce -- shown on MLB Network's Clubhouse Confidential show, their stathead program -- is that he is among the top 5 is largest discrepancy between OPS vs worst pitchers and OPS vs best pitchers. In other words, he feasts on bad pitching and can't hit good pitching. This may be the kind of inconsistency that is frustrating to some fans.

The better players may have the largest discrepancy. It may be that Bruce feasts on bad pitching but us just normal vs. good pitching. I haven't seen the stats. How does he rank vs. other hitters vs. good pitching?

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

Every fan thinks its team and players are inconsistent on offense, becuase every team and player is.

If you visit the Card's boards they complain bitterly about a Card's offense which has been 1-2 the last two years because they can't score 5 runs every game. What team does?

hahaha why do you think I spend my time here? Those boards are insane and don't realize that baseball isn't something you find on MLB The Show. The Matt Holliday hate gets beyond ridiculous on the STL forums.

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Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

Originally Posted by MikeThierry

hahaha why do you think I spend my time here? Those boards are insane and don't realize that baseball isn't something you find on MLB The Show. The Matt Holliday hate gets beyond ridiculous on the STL forums.

Re: How inconsistent is Jay Bruce?

Originally Posted by MikeThierry

Was Adam Dunn hated because he had the stigma of not being a clutch player?

Yes.
And he struck out a lot.
And he wasn't a good fielder.
And he struck out a lot.
And he didn't hit sac flies (because they landed in the seats).
And he wasn't clutch.
And he struck out a lot.
And he wasn't a good fielder.
and he wasn't clutch.
And he didn't hit sac flies.

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